Nick Is Alive
by Spirits Among Stars
Summary: Maria Hill and Gabriella Ackerly dress as HYDRA agents to save Steve, Natasha and Sam. T- To be safe.
So Nick was pretending to be dead. Honestly, when Maria pulled her aside as Nick was being rushed into surgery and told her what they were planning, she thought it was absolutely mental. What if the Tetrodotoxin B didn't actually work and made it worse. Sure, it's for stress but you never know. Any attempt on Nick's life had to be successful, being the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and all. When she stared at his 'dead body' on the operating table and in the private room, she felt horrible. He was so close to actually being dead and, even though they aren't exactly the best of friends, the thought of him dead... well that was such an odd thought. He's (usually) always ahead of the enemy and to think that one day he wouldn't, that was the strangest thing. Getting him from the Triskellion to his hideout to the Dam was rather difficult because of his long list of injuries but they made it; after a few close calls too. Rumlow almost caught her stealing a few cases of painkillers for Nick but she managed to finish what she was doing before he questioned what she was doing.

Then they got word that there was a fight breaking out between Steve, Natasha, some guy she didn't catch the name of, and the Winter Soldier on the streets of D.C., Nick sent her and Maria to rescue them and bring them to safety. They got there just in time to see them get captured by HYDRA and she and Maria quickly came to the conclusion that they had to get inside the van they were being corralled into. Thanks to Nick, he managed to acquire a few black, very uncomfortable HYDRA uniforms for their rescue mission, and since they had already changed into them, they simply strolled towards the van like they were HYDRA agents and watched as Steve, Natasha, and the other guy- she needs to know his name otherwise she was just gonna keep calling him that- were escorted into the vehicle. Ackerly glanced around for the Winter Soldier and he was nowhere to be seen. Rumlow ordered her, Maria and another to get into the van to closely watch over the three of them so they didn't try to escape.

They rode in silence for a while. Then Steve started talking. She and Maria continued to sit patiently as it dawned on Steve that the Winter Solider was his old pal, Bucky Barnes. Damn, I bet that was a real shock to the system. He looked right at him like he didn't even know him, but he knew it was him even though that was at least 70 years ago. How the hell was that possible? This Zola guy, perhaps? Bucky's unit was captured in 1943. The scientist must've done some serious experiments on him to help him survive his fall. They must have found him shortly afterwards and began his brainwashing into being the Winter Soldier. All of that, however, was clearly not Steve's fault, no matter how much he thought it was.

"None of that's your fault, Steve," Natasha said, echoing her thoughts, clearly affected by the gunshot wound to her shoulder; she sounded tired.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky."

Now that's a sweet thought. They must've been super close. The guy sitting next to Natasha looked at her wound with a concerned face. "We need to get a doctor here," he said, looking at them. "If we don't put pressure on that wound, she's gonna bleed out here in the truck."

Maria buzzed her shock baton to intimidate him from talking but after a beat, she electrocuted the guy next to her with the baton and kicked him in the head with her foot. Ackerly shot him with a quick blast and he slumped to the floor unconscious. The three stared at them in shock. Maria was the first to remove the crushing helmet. "Ah! That thing was squeezing my brain," she paused as she looked at the unfamiliar face in the van. He knew Steve otherwise he wouldn't even be here... And he saw her use her powers. "Who is this guy?"

He looked at Maria. "The name's Sam. Sam Wilson." Ackerly raised an eyebrow from under her helmet, he seemed like a nice guy and Steve trusted him enough for him to be here, so maybe she should too. Sam looked back at Natasha with a concerned face, "Seriously, she's needs a doctor."

Now it was the doctor's to remove her helmet, letting her stuffed ponytail fall free, and she placed the helmet on the floor. "You said you needed a doctor?" she quipped.

"Not your kind of doctor," Natasha grunted, looking slightly out of it. Being shot was never fun.

"I'm the only one you've got at the minute, so you'll have to make do," she replied with a slight smile.

Sam regarded her with a curious look after a double take. There was no horror in his eyes like most people when they saw her abilities for a first time, shock, of course was there, but no outright horror which was something she almost always saw. "So you can... blast stuff?" he said slowly. She nodded, cautiously watching him. He blinked then said with a dismissive shrug, "Alright. Nice." That was it? An 'alright' and a shrug, and that's that? No life story explanation? Or holy crap how the hell can you do that? Honestly, the lack of questions was quite refreshing. Surely he had some but now wasn't the time for that. She and Maria needed to get them back to Nick and see to Natasha's wound.

"So, how are we getting out of here?" Natasha asked.

"We've got a van parked nearby," the doctor said. "In a traffic lights time, there's a manhole cover which we'll climb down to get to our get away vehicle."

"And how will we get out of here?"

"Natasha, it's a little something called a Mouse Hole. Sure, I could use my powers but I'm not a show off, especially in front of someone I've just met."

Sam chuckled, "You're not a show off with those powers."

Gabriella felt her cheeks heat up and it wasn't the stuffy uniform. "Thanks," she said with a smile. "Now then, back to business." Maria pulled out the hi-tech device used for cutting through anything and began to cut through the floor like a hot knife through butter. It didn't take long break through and at the next stop, Gabriella kicked through it to create a hole in the floor, revealing the rusted manhole cover below. She bent into the hole and shoved the cover aside before looking up at those sitting around her, "Right, go, go, go." Maria descended first to carefully help Natasha down, who was followed quickly by Steve, Sam, and finally her.

"Follow me," Maria said, once Ackerly had closed the manhole cover over their heads.

They followed behind her, hurrying down the dank, smelly tunnel towards where they parked their van. Natasha tried her best to keep her breathing together but it quickly started to turn shallow as she attempted to steam the pain shooting through her shoulder. Gabriella glanced at the woman in pain behind her, who quickly caught her eye and gave her best attempt at an I'm fine expression. She response with her own disbelieving look to which the assassin rolled her eyes at, and looked ahead to keep moving. Daylight at the end of the tunnel was in sight and due to their hasty pace, they made it there within the next few moments. Maria peered around the corners of exit and gestured for them to hurry across where their van was patiently parked.

Ackerly practically threw the side door open and ushered Sam, Natasha, and Steve inside before closing it and joining Maria in the front. "I don't think I ever caught your name," Sam said as they sped away, watching her fumbling around for the medical kit.

"Oh! I'm Maria Hill," she glanced at him through the rear view mirror.

The doctor turned her body around look at Sam, still fumbling around with the medical kit, and answered him without a thought. "Doctor Gabriella Ackerly," she told him with a smile.

"Nice to meet you both," he said to the two of them. He held out his hand and she shook it over the back of the seat. "So, you're like Steve?"

She shook her head with a light chuckle, "Sort of. Science was involved but I wasn't frozen in ice for 67 years and I'm sure as hell not as strong as him. Aha!" her hands found the bandage in the medical kit and she handed it to Steve, who pressed it against Natasha's wound.

"That's it?" Sam asked.

"Would you like me to give you the short story?"

"Only if you want to."

Only if she... wanted to? Confusion flickered over her face for a split second and she almost dropped the medical kit. He wasn't demanding she told him? Damn, I like him already. "Well, I might as well seeing as you asked so nicely..." she put the kit backbunder her seat. "An alien object crash landed in Death Valley and I was asked by Fury to study it. After a while, an unknown group of people broke in to where it was being held and someone got inside the lab. It exploded with me and the other inside. When I woke up, I lost a leg," she tapped her left leg and it made a faint thud sound, "and gained crazy powers."

"Sounds like there's a lot more to that story."

"There is and I'd be happy to tell you at a later date."

There was silence as they continued on with the sound of tire on tarmac under them. "So what do I call you? Doctor seems to formal."

"Likewise, Sam, and, please, call me Gabriella, doc, or Ackerly; whatever tickles your fancy." He nodded his head.

They pulled up outside the Dam. She and Maria jumped out of the van and Maria hurriedly slid the black side door open. They helped Natasha down and made their way into the Dam. The five of them hurried down the tunnel, leaving their escape van behind. Steve held a bandage to Romanoff's gun shot wound. "GSW. She's lost at least a pint. Maybe two."

The actual doctor they needed ran towards them. "Let me take her."

"She'll want to see him first."

She and Maria lead them towards where Nick was resting. "Him?" Natasha echoed, sounding incredulous. "I can't believe it." This is going to be fun.

They entered the room and Fury laid on the bed, watching them arrive. "About damn time." He told them of his various injuries received by the Winter Soldier's attack on him; a lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, a shattered collarbone, perforated liver, "one hell of a headache." and a collapsed lung as Doctor Fine tended to Natasha's wound. The surgeons cut him open, sure, but Tetrodotoxin B, he told them, slows the pulse to one beat a minute to make him look like he's dead. Bruce Banner developed it for stress. It didn't really work for him but they found a use for it.

Steve questioned the secrecy of the whole thing and why they couldn't be told but the reply was that any attempt on Nick's life had to act genuine and successful because one never knew who's was watching. Besides, he wasn't sure who to trust and she couldn't blame him. On her way here, she was shot at by people she once trusted; a stray bullet just barely missing her right leg as she ran and she needed that leg.

Pumped full of painkillers and supposedly feeling better, Nick, much to the annoyance of everyone, slowly got out of the "damn uncomfortable bed" to move to the table, where they could talk in a more serious sense. They began to talk about Alexander Pierce. Nick held a photo of him, commenting on the fact that he declined the Nobel Peace Prize, saying peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility, and it was stuff like that gives him trust issues. Ackerly couldn't blame him foe that either, that didn't sit well with her either. There was always something off about Pierce but she couldn't ever place her finger on it. Figures he'd be the one behind all this.

They continued on, she nodded along as they talked about Project Insight and the lives that would be lost if the Helicarriers became fully weaponised having reached 3,000 feet and triangulated with the Insight satellites. Their task was to replace the targeting blades with their own that would render everything useless. Three Helicarriers. Three server blades that needed to be replaced and all linked together. Not one or two but all three or innocent people would die. Everyone on board those carriers were HYDRA until proven otherwise, and that was a lot of people. All they had to do was to get past HYDRA and insert them. And maybe, just maybe they could salvage what's left. But she knew that was going to be tough and would take a lot of doing.

"We're not salvaging anything," Steve's voice snapped her back to listening to the conversation. "We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick. We're taking down S.H.I.E.L.D."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. had nothing to do with this," Fury protested. He was right, but so was Steve. S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA, at the moment though, were hard to differentiate, until one was shooting at you.

"You gave me this mission. This is how it ends," Steve replied. "S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been compromised. You said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."

"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed," Nick gestured to the area around them. But not until it was too late.

"How many paid the price before you did?" Okay, Cap, you might want to take a deep breath.

A beat. "Look, I didn't know about Barnes."

"Even if you had, would you have told me?" Steve asked, sounding a little harsh. Probably not. "Or would you have compartmentalised that, too? It all goes."

"He's right," Maria said.

Fury glanced at Natasha, who gave a quiet indication of the same opinion. Fury then looked at Sam. "Don't look at me. I do what he does, just slower."

Nick's gaze then landed on her, "I agree with them, Nick."

Fury sat back in his seat with a sigh. "Well, it looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain."

Steve nodded his head. "Right then... My plan is Sam, Hill, the doctor and I, we infiltrate the Triskellion control room then we," he gestured to himself, Sam and her, "move onto the Helicarrier with Hill holding down the control room."

"The council are gonna be there to have a meeting. And about what, I don't know," Ackerly said. "Pierce is probably gonna try and shift their loyalties to HYDRA or kill them."

Steve thought for a moment. "Okay, Natasha you can work your away into the council as Councilwoman Hawley and Nick, I'm sure you'll want to see Pierce so make an entrance."

"I'll scare him to death with a Helicopter."

"You're in no fit state to be flying," Maria told him bluntly.

"Just pump me full of painkillers. I'll be fine." Maria sighed annoyed at his reply.

"Right then, I assume we're all agreed?" Steve said, looking around at every at the table.

"Actually," Ackerly said as she stood from her chair, "as much as I'd love to help out, I can't. I've got a dog to find and things to sort out."

Steve looked disappointed but nodded in understanding. "Alright. It'll just be Sam and I taking on the Helicarriers."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry," she said. She really did want to help them but old Orion was out there in that mess probably looking for her and she had to repay that courtesy.

"A dog?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Yeah, his name's Orion. He's a blue merle border collie wearing a red bandana. If you see him about tell him I'm looking for him."

"I will do."

She looked at him and smiled a little. He might not see him or do it anyway but the fact that he was considering it was really touching. "Thanks."

"You be careful out there," Nick told her.

"I will. I don't fancy dying at the hands of HYDRA just yet," she said. The doctor smiled at the group. "Now you guys take care of yourselves, expect everything and good luck."

"You too, doc," Natasha said.

"What will you do once you find him?" Steve asked.

She shrugged in reply. "No idea, but I'll figure it out."

"Alright. Good luck."

Ackerly smiled and said, "Thank you."

"Be safe, doc, take care."

Gabriella turned and left.

The moment she steps outside, hell in the form of HYDRA will rain down on her. Her life was in danger. Everyone who knows her was in danger. She couldn't return until it was over. She couldn't contact anyone; everyone was HYDRA until proven otherwise, she had to go dark. S.H.I.E.L.D. was compromised and HYDRA knew everything about her. Aliases, safe houses, past, and the O.R.B.S failure, all of it. She couldn't trust anyone. Not a soul.


End file.
